Report on the creative workshop on new tools for collaboration

On May 6th and 8th, the P2Pvalue development team organized participative workshops on collaborative tools in la Tabacalera to identify the needs, desires and difficulties of Common-Based Peer Production (CBPP) communities. These workshops were facilitated by Carolina García and Antonio Tapiador.

Though participation was lower than hoped, some interesting results where obtained from the events. The communities with most participants collaborating were two agro-ecological cooperatives (SAS and BAH), two self-managed social centers (La Tabacalera and La Piluka) and one Free Software Community (Kune), but other communities where also represented.

The first day members of these communities participated in three different activities. Two groups were formed and participants were asked to brainstorm about the moments where communication and collaboration happen in their communities. These ideas were then collectively grouped into five clusters (reception, coordination, emotions, decision-making and dissemination). Then the tools they use in their communities were identified, and the pros and cons were listed and grouped. Finally, facts about communication and collaboration were collected. From a selection of them, challenges were defined. Solutions were proposed to approach a collectivelly selected challlenge. At the end, one of the solutions was chosen.

The early results of the first session pointed that to improve the participation in the communities was perceived as a challenge. This was used to divide the participants of the next event into two groups: a group that occasionally participate in their communities and a group of active members. These groups participated in two activities. First, they collaboratively created empathy maps, where participants expressed what they think, see, say, feel and do in the communities. Then they did a value-proposition canvas where the activities of the communities were identified as well as the aspects that make them better (gains) or worse (pains) and then they did a brainstorm of tools to support thess activities, avoid the pains or obtain gains.

The analysis of the outputs of the workshop resulted in three value propositions:

For communication and internal work:

A mobile application for coordination and information management. With events, tasks and participation visibility, decision-making and resource management functionalities

To attract new participants and dissemination:

A visibility tool where new people can see what the community does, who participates and how, where and when theyparticipate.

and a map of users, groups and communities

To improve collaboration among different communities:

A tool for automatically suggesting synergies, collaboration and activities among similar communities.

Besides the interesting results, that are going to be used to guide the software development towards the needs of CBPP communities, the participants learned interesting dynamics in a participatory and relaxed atmosphere.